BRAIN-COMPUTER INTERFACES over EEG

Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) research are emerging in the last few years providing non-invasive, wireless and low-cost ElectroEncephaloGraphy (EEG) devices. The increasing study of neurosciences and the need to respond to specific human brain diseases are two important factors to this evolution.
Follow it in this blog with a readout accessible to everyone.

Sunday, August 13, 2017

Rui Zhang, Qihong Wang and Kai Li present a BCI-based environmental control system that integrates household electrical appliances, a nursing bed, and an intelligent wheelchair with automated navigation function. Synchronous and asynchronous control modes are employed in different situations to provide more natural and practical control. Specifically, the asynchronous mode, which can infer from the ongoing EEG whether the user intends to execute his/her control through the BCI, is for switching the environmental control system on or off or for selecting a device (e.g., a TV) to control.

Furthermore, a verification mechanism and several pseudo-keys are introduced into our paradigm to effectively reduce false operations in the asynchronous mode. Once a device is switched on, the synchronous mode, generally with a higher BCI detection performance of accuracy and speed than the asynchronous mode, is used for function selection, such as channel selection for a TV. Two experiments involving six paralyzed patients with severe spinal cord injuries (SCIs) were separately carried out in a nursing bed and a wheelchair. Experimental results indicated that all the SCI patients could operate the household electrical appliances, the nursing bed and the intelligent wheelchair by using the BCI with satisfactory. The proposed environmental control system can thus be used to assist severely paralyzed people with SCIs in their daily life and improve their self-care abilities.

Friday, August 11, 2017

Neurofuse seems to have a brain miracle effect just in a few minutes. Some testimonials report the "amazing" intense focus, mental clarity and cognitive precision results. True or false? We will wait for the answers.

Enhance Mind IQ, which has no recorded side effects in any clinical trials, was soon the target of critics who claimed it was too powerful to be sold without a prescription. Other people in academic circles insisted that Enhance Mind IQ provided an artificial edge for its users and was unfair to those who weren’t taking it. This led to it being banned from quiz shows and at many top universities as well.

User-friendly, cross-platform software applications to make the system directly accessible to endusers.

Tackling this challenge may be the key to enabling robust communication and control for patients, and breaking the limitations of current research in terms of sample size and longitudinal data. With this workshop we aim to bring experts from both inside and outside the BCI community together to inspire future work that will allow us to overcome existing boundaries, both in research and in clinical practice.

Facilitators and barriers of using mobile EEG: a workshop using the extreme test case of BCIs for space flights

Since the advent of mobile EEG with which the subject is no longer constrained by a lab environment, but can be tested in a realistic environment, an increasing number of application areas are opening up for investigation. For example, mobile EEG offers new research opportunities in Sports and Movement Science, Entertainment, Neuromarketing and more fundamental Cognitive Neuroscience. However, mobile EEG also confronts us with new technical and experimental challenges. During our workshop we aim to start a constructive multidisciplinary technology assessment to identify the main barriers and facilitators of mobile EEG. To facilitate the discussion, we focus on the extreme use scenario of Brain-Computer Interface research for space flights. Thus, speakers will first present their scientific findings, experience and challenges with mobile EEG. Then, we narrow the discussion to the extreme use scenario of BCI for space flights, which prepares workshop participants for a final group discussion.

Passive BCI, Lab Streaming Layer, and Neuroadaptive Technology

This workshop is aimed at participants interested in applications of BCI technology in Human‐Computer Interaction for users without disabilities. It is intended to represent the Society for Neuroadaptive Technology (SNAT) and to support the communication between this society and BCI researchers. Dr. Thorsten O. Zander will present and discuss the aims of passive BCI research, Neuroadaptive Technology and modern Human‐Computer Interaction. This part represents a forum to identify synergies and develop new ideas. Dr. David Medine and Ratko Petrovic, will present technological developments for passive and hybrid BCIs. Dr. Medine will present the Lab Streaming Layer (LSL), an open‐source software project for synchronized, multi‐modal data streaming and recording. Mr. Petrovic will present recent hardware developments compatible with LSL. The third part is a hands‐on demonstration with Neuroadaptive Technologies. In several groups,participants use an application combining passive BCI, gaze control and dry electrodes.

Wednesday, August 09, 2017

Cortical Vieweris a web-based, interactive, 3D viewer for exploring the brain cortex developed at Imperial College.

The viewer allows users to interactively explore the HCP’s Multi-modal Parcellation. Clicking on different regions brings up access to a wealth of meta-data summarising directly the extensive neuroanatomical supplementary results. ‘Sections’ refers to which broad neuroanatomical sections of the brain the region belongs to, where these sections reference how the brain was subdivided up during manual annotation.

The explorer offers several different schemes for viewing the data, for example the regions connected (or in a common section) to the primary motor cortex can be viewed either by exploding (moving) the areas, or recolouring (to fade out unrelated regions).

Monday, July 31, 2017

The Neuromore BCI tool seems to stop it's free license. Now the subscription options are $50/month or $420/year. Like Matlab or LabVIEW it will be a good ideia to have a low cost or free (restricted) editions for developers, academics, etc. Let´s wait and see what happens.

Sunday, July 30, 2017

The Virtual Brain software (TVB) is a computational framework for the virtualization of brain structure and function. This is accomplished by simulating network dynamics using biologically realistic large-scale connectivity.

TVB merges structural information on individual brains including 3D geometry of neocortex, white matter connectivity, etc. and then simulates the emergent brain dynamics. The logic of TVB is the following:

Structural information provides certain constraints on the type of network dynamics that may emerge.

While these constraints limit arbitrary brain dynamics, structural connectivity provides the foundation on top of which a dynamic repertoire of functional configurations can emerge.

When brain structure is changed, as maturation, aging, or from damage or disease, then the brain’s dynamic repertoire changes.

TVB allows the systematic investigation of the dynamic repertoire as a function of structure. It moves away from the investigation of isolated regional responses and considers the function of each region in terms of the interplay among brain regions.

This allows us to

Re-classify lesions in terms of the network of nodes (regions) and connections (axons, white matter tracts) that have been damaged and to

Investigate the mechanisms that preserve function by understanding how regional damage affects the function of other parts of the network.

Thursday, July 27, 2017

Brain-Computer Interfaces are promising technologies that can improve Human-Robot Interaction, especially for disabled and impaired individuals. Noninvasive BCI’s, which are very desirable from a medical and therapeutic perspective, are only able to deliver noisy, low-bandwidth signals, making their use in complex tasks difficult. To this end, we present a shared control online grasp planning framework using an advanced EEG-based interface.

These results are encouraging, and demonstrate that a relatively fast and effective pipeline based off of only EEG data is workable. The experiment revealed some issues, specifically in terms of how images are generated when representing abstract concepts.

The NESD program looks ahead to a future in which advanced neural devices offer improved fidelity, resolution, and precision sensory interface for therapeutic applications. By increasing the capacity of advanced neural interfaces to engage more than one million neurons in parallel, NESD aims to enable rich two-way communication with the brain at a scale that will help deepen our understanding of that organ’s underlying biology, complexity, and function.

Friday, July 07, 2017

We are still waiting for the version 3 of the Colorado Electroencephalography and Brain-Computer Interfaces Laboratory. The CEBL3 it will be a new software platform, presented at 6th International BCI2016 meeting, written in Python, that is designed to support all phases of BCI research and development.

A major design
goal of CEBL3 is to allow researchers to rapidly progress novel ideas from the early experimental and analysis
stages to fully functional BCI prototypes. Current BCI software packages are typically designed with one of two primary goals: offline analysis
or performing interactive experiments.

For instance, EEGLAB and BCILAB are written primarily in MATLAB
and easily permit exploratory analysis using standard or custom methods. However, they are not equipped with
an extensive framework for developing new user interfaces or performing real-time experiments. On the other
hand, software packages like BCI2000 and OpenVibe are well-suited for performing interactive experiments.
However, they are written in C++ and require significant time and effort to implement new methods. The goal of
CEBL3 is to bridge this gap by providing a single BCI software platform that supports all stages of BCI
development in a flexible, feature-rich and high-performance environment.

Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Neural underpinnings of entrepreneurship are not well understood yet. Recent publications suggest that the behavior of psychopaths and entrepreneurs is not very different. This study aims to take an overall view of personality traits typically associated to an entrepreneur (determined by a psychometric assessment) and compare them to connectivity indices and cortical brain measurements. This is a proof-of-concept work towards bridging the gap between psycometry and brain underpinnings.

Thursday, June 15, 2017

At April 19, after the FB presentation about it's secret team "Building 8" working in BCI, the media started publishing a lot of articles about the new FB/BCI revolution.

Facebook revealed it has a team of 60 engineers working on building a brain-computer interface that will let you type with just your mind without invasive implants. The team plans to use optical imaging to scan your brain a hundred times per second to detect you speaking silently in your head, and translate it into text. Regina Dugan, the head of Facebook’s R&D division Building 8, explained to conference attendees that the goal is to eventually allow people to type at 100 words per minute, 5X faster than typing on a phone, with just your mind.

This presentation was a mix of research and a pure marketing campaign. Of course the technology will grow up in the next years but there are a lot of "technical" barriers that will need time to type a message in your smartphone just using your thoughts. I belive this will be possible and it will be a total user-interface revolution. But, as the cancer cure aim, it needs years of work, doubt and research.

Sunday, June 04, 2017

For the further development of the fields of telemedicine, neurotechnology and Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI), advances in hybrid multimodal signal acquisition and processing technology are invaluable. Currently, there are no commonly available hybrid devices combining bio-electrical and bio-optical neurophysiological measurements – here Electroencephalography (EEG) and functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS).

The resulting Mobile, Modular, Multimodal Biosignal Acquisitionarchitecture (M3BA) is based on a high-performance analog front-end optimized for bio-potential acquisition, a microcontroller, and our previously published open source openNIRS technology. The designed M3BAmodules are very small configurable high precision and low-noise modules with full input linearity, Bluetooth, 3D accelerometer and low power consumption.

Saturday, June 03, 2017

The BR41N.IO hackathon challenges young geeks to design and buid a unique, playful and wearable headpiece which is able to measure useful EEG signals in real-time to create any sort of interaction. With the intended purpose in mind, the teams plan and produce their own fully functional headpiece. 3D printers are on-site, so the teams will be able to give their headpieces an individual design that fits on participants’ head.

The goal of this hackathon is to bring people of different professions together, such as engineers, programmers, physicians, or graphic designers. As an interdisciplinary team, they learn from each other and merge well established hardware and software in order to create a new, innovative and exceptional idea. The participation only requires basic knowledge in Brain-Computer Interfaces, machine learning, programming, signal processing or designing.

Saturday, May 20, 2017

First it was Elon Musk, now Facebook. Suddenly, all the big Silicon Valley players want to get into brain tech (IEEE Spectrum). Mark Zuckerberg added his perspective on the news in a post soon after the announcement, presenting the brain-typing project as a natural evolution of Facebook’s mission to help people share their interior worlds. If they like sharing comments, photos, and videos, why not directly share their thoughts too?

In my opinion, we must invest in this BCI solution for several years to achieve a fluid and natural writing resorting solely to the identification of brain electrical impulses through non-invasive equipment.

Thursday, May 18, 2017

The list below ranks each hardware company according to the number of publications they are associated with (Google Scholar). While not exhaustive, and certainly subject to change, the following represents at least a bird’s-eye view of the top EEG hardware companies currently out there. Each company offers different hardware, and choosing the best will often depend on your research goals.

Wednesday, May 10, 2017

The sectional Brain Atlas focuses on the anatomical structures while both the schematic and slice view are used to represent the area of interest. Any region of interest is also accessible with a search function either by name or abbreviation:

Tuesday, May 02, 2017

RESET is a mobile, modular structure designed to include up to six different scientifically proven stress reduction methods. From intimacy to sound therapy, each unit provides a unique experience in playful or interactive way. Shape, materiality, color and light are parameters that can change per unit.

Thursday, April 27, 2017

New portable EEG devices are in the market every year. Now the Personal Neuro Devices company are launching the SPARK ($99) that connects directly with your smartphone.

The ability to take and send brain images to your smartphone is only the first step. The Spark environment allows developers and innovators to create their own apps and programs. Harness your Spark data and expand realm of what is possible for pervasive neurotechnology, brain monitoring and treatment.

Features

Sampling Rate: 256 Hz;

Bluetooth v.4;

Battery Life: up to 8 hours;

Neurofeedback apps to train cognitive faculties.

Have you ever taken a selfie of your brain? This is one of the many things you can do with Spark. Get an image of your brain sent directly to your phone. Keep track of your mental well-being and the state of your brain using up to date neurometrics. It's a selfie that gets below the surface.

It's probably the most easyer EEG equipment to use in the market. No doubt that this is the way for portable BCI but I am curious to know about the EEG results, from AF3 and AF4 and a few more electrodes, processed and classified in a smartphone.

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

What are the possible socioeconomic impacts of a mind-machine interface?

Elon Musk described it as a “digital layer above the cortex that could work well and symbiotically with you,” in a way similar to the concept of cyberbrain in Ghost in the Shell (...). Neural lace would act as an interface which would regulate data exchange without permitting unfettered access - to prevent the mind from becoming “house cats” to AI.

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Conventional BCIs are often expensive, complex to operate, and lack portability, which confines their use to laboratory settings. Portable, inexpensive BCIs can mitigate these problems, but it remains unclear whether their low-cost design compromises their performance. Therefore, we developed a portable, low-cost BCI and compared its performance to that of a conventional BCI.

This BCI was assembled by integrating a custom electroencephalogram (EEG) amplifier with an open-source microcontroller and a touchscreen. The function of the amplifier was first validated against a commercial bioamplifier, followed by a head-to-head comparison between the custom BCI (using 4 EEG channels) and a conventional 32-channel BCI.

Monday, April 10, 2017

Digital Economy & Society department from European Commission shows an article about BNCI - Brain-Neural-Computer-Interaction. This area investigates how brain activity can be recorded and used to interact with an electronic device. It uses electroencephalography (EEG) in combination with electromyography (EMG) captured from muscles electrical signals.

BNCI is an information channel for sending messages and control commands direct from the brain to theexternal world. The critical progress needed for BNCI proliferation is not only in technical terms:

Economy of scale – BNCI should be made useful to a wider group of users. Beyond the design for people with disabilities, a possible spill over to mainstream technologies could reduce costs and increase performance.

Cool Design – In BNCI systems, in particular, the sensor should be cosmetically appealing to a broad range of users. Also, usability is of primary importance in people's perception.

Zero Training – Preparation time and the presence of experts to set up BNCI should be reduced in the future – ideally the user can use the BNCI system independently.

Thursday, April 06, 2017

When experts analyze EEGs they look for landmarks in the traces corresponding to established waveform patterns, such as phasic events of particular frequency or morphology. This modeling approach automatically learns the waveforms corresponding to transient, reoccurring events within EEG traces.

The methodology is based on a sparsely excited model of a single EEG trace, and the model parameters are estimated using shift-invariant dictionary learning algorithms developed in the signal processing community. On the motor imagery dataset, linear discriminant analysis can distinguish the type of motor imagery based on the spatial patterns of a subset of the learned waveforms.

Wednesday, April 05, 2017

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) based on sensorimotor rhythms (SMRs) have achieved successful control, therefore there is a need to develop techniques which can identify with high spatial resolution the self-modulated neural activity reflective of the actions of a helpful output device. Over the past decade EEG source imaging (ESI) techniques have proven to be an effective approach for interpreting motor intent by reconstructing the current density on the cortical surface.

The successful separation of these complex tasks in an offline setting provides confidence for developing an SMR BCI for the natural control of external devices using realistic motor imaginations.

Tuesday, April 04, 2017

Teegi is an anthropomorphic and tangible avatar exposing a users’ brain activity in real time. It is connected to a device sensing the brain by means of electroencephalography (EEG). Teegi moves its hands and feet and closes its eyes along with the person being monitored. It also displays on its scalp the associated EEG signals, thanks to a semi-spherical display made of LEDs.

Attendees can interact directly with Teegi – e.g. move its limbs – to discover by themselves the underlying brain processes. Teegi can be used for scientific outreach to introduce neurotechnologies in general and brain-computer interfaces (BCI) in particular.

Thursday, March 30, 2017

The increasing use of sensor technologies and dramatically changing healthcare infrastructure in the developing economies such as India and China would have very positive impact on the growth of the BCI technology market. However, the lack of professional with expertise in handling BCI systems, cyber security issues and ethical considerations would have an adverse impact on the growth of the market.

The Reporthighlights the adoption of BCI market, Europe. The countries included in the report are Germany, UK, France, Russia, Spain, Italy and Rest of Europe. The Key Topics Covered are:Market Scope & Methodology, Europe BCI Market- By Type, Application or Country and Company Profiles.

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Elon Musk has hinted at the existence of Neuralinka few times over the last six months - “Over time I think we will probably see a closer merger of biological intelligence and digital intelligence. It's mostly about the bandwidth, the speed of the connection between your brain and the digital version of yourself, particularly output."

On Twitter, Musk has responded to inquiring fans about his progress on a so-called “neural lace,” which is sci-fi shorthand for a brain-computer interface humans could use to improve themselves.

Friday, March 17, 2017

WIRED Healthgathered hundreds of leaders and influencers from across the globe in London to discuss the field of health innovation and technology. In addition to their long lists of honors and historic accolades, the unrivaled lineup of speakers brought an infectious enthusiasm for action in healthcare.

Monday, March 06, 2017

SmartBCI is a wireless solution of EEG, BCI and Neurofeedback, which has been designed for practical research applications. Continuous monitoring with video capturing ideal for out-door and ambulatory EEG investigations. Wireless ultra-small & low-weight hardware for brain electrical activity recording. 21 Ag/AgCl scalp electrodes designed according to the international 10-20 electrodes placement systems. *Bluetooth, Micro SD memory card, and 24 channels.

The company shows some pictures with different kinds of sport activity. Flying a plane its OK but getting EEG signals doing motocross it seems something very dificult. Let´s wait to get some user references.

Saturday, March 04, 2017

The Annual World Congress of Neurotalk (NT)congresses contribute to offering professionals in the field of Neuroscience a multidisciplinary informative cooperative platform. The Neurotalk-2017, with the theme of "New Technologies, New Ideas and New Future" will be held on May 22-24, 2017 in Barcelona.

Monday, February 27, 2017

In a first-of-its-kind gathering at the New York Academy of Sciences, researchers from some of the world’s leading universities and institutions convened to discuss at the 13th annual Key Symposium the various applications of bioelectronic medicine, the cutting-edge field that uses technology to treat disease and injury.

While still in early stages of development, bioelectronic medicine has already been proven in studies and clinical trials to successfully treat conditions including paralysis and rheumatoid arthritis.

Saturday, February 25, 2017

NeuroTechNix will be a meeting point of multidisciplinary teams, of both biomedical and engineering professionals, academics and practitioners. It will promote translational discussions on how technology can meet the needs of both clinical practitioners and persons with neurological disorders.